Movie Night - Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story

We went uptown last night to the massive Loews on the Upper West Side to see the new Michael Winterbottom film, "Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story," which stars Steve Coogan of "24 Hour Party People" fame. When we saw the trailer for the movie about a month ago, we were intrigued, but thought the film looked pretentious and, worse, like a great idea gone sour. The preview made it just seem like a regretable, bad Brit-indie experiment that was trying too hard to be "original." But we still wanted to see it, afterall, it was directed by Winterbottom, whose work we like, and it had Coogan and a familiar, eclectic cast of British and American stars. And it was about and based upon -- in a meta-meta way -- the infamously difficult-to-adapt novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Anyway, we're very happy we went to see it. The movie is funny, fascinating and clever, maybe almost too clever for its own good. People will either get it or not get it, either like it or be confused by it and end up wondering what the hell it is. But we found it funny, witty, sophisticated and entertaining. Most of all, we want to see it again right away, which too few movies make us want to do. We'll definitely get the DVD when it comes out.Tristram Shandy gets a Massive Rating of 3.75 stars out of 5.

Posted by Robsam at February 21, 2006 12:46 AM